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Shan

Joined: 13 Jan 2009
Posts: 9075
Location: South Wales

Posted: Thu Jul 18, 19 8:07 am Post subject:
Our plums look to be doing well this year. Last year, we seemed to have an issue with all the branches on the one tree snapping and the resulting plums had absolutely no flavour.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45676
Location: Essex

Posted: Thu Jul 18, 19 2:06 pm Post subject:
From memory it was rainy as plums ripened last year, that always compromises flavour

Shan

Joined: 13 Jan 2009
Posts: 9075
Location: South Wales

Posted: Thu Jul 18, 19 2:48 pm Post subject:
Well, let's hope for some flavour this year because quite honestly, if you had bitten into it blindfolded, it would have tasted of absolutely nothing.

sgt.colon

Joined: 27 Jul 2009
Posts: 7380
Location: Just south of north.

Posted: Fri Jul 19, 19 9:26 am Post subject:
Apple trees don't seem to be doing well down our allotment this year. The guys next to me, their tree was loaded with them last year, this year, not a single apple.

Shan

Joined: 13 Jan 2009
Posts: 9075
Location: South Wales

Posted: Fri Jul 19, 19 10:07 am Post subject:
Same problem here, not a single apple. I had read somewhere (don't know how accurate it is) that apples need to be thinned out each year to get a consistent yearly crop.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45676
Location: Essex

Posted: Fri Jul 19, 19 10:43 am Post subject:
Pruning and thinning will help

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 16005

Posted: Sat Jul 20, 19 6:37 am Post subject:
Some varieties can end up cycling to every other year. Looks as if our quince may be doing that. We didn't have any problems at blossom time, but unless they are hiding, can't see may fruits this year.

Jam Lady

Joined: 28 Dec 2006
Posts: 2573
Location: New Jersey, USA

Posted: Sat Jul 20, 19 12:38 pm Post subject:

We're in a period of brutal summer weather. Yesterday's high temperature was 95 degrees Fahrenheit and humid. Heat index claims it felt like 113 degrees Fahrenheit. Rain Wednesday & Thursday, close to an inch. Yesterday I was able to pick more chanterelles. Today is expected to be even hotter than yesterday. There is a heat advisory through Monday. My hardy banana is loving it.

The two books I'm reviewing for my website this month are "Grow Great Vegetables in New jersey" and "Grow Great Vegetables in Pennsylvania." This morning I am going over to someone's vegetable garden to photograph. They grow artichokes, among other things.

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 16005

Posted: Sun Jul 21, 19 6:32 am Post subject:
Is that globe or Jerusalem Jam Lady? I have grown both, but struggle with globe here as they have trouble surviving the winter. Not sure if it is just too cold or too wet or both. Jerusalem grow well and are pretty easy, but are very hard to get rid of when you have them. Your weather sounds horrible. It is quite warm here, but nothing like that bad.

Jam Lady

Joined: 28 Dec 2006
Posts: 2573
Location: New Jersey, USA

Posted: Sun Jul 21, 19 1:22 pm Post subject:

They are globe artichoke, Mistress Rose. She starts them at the same time she sows the first broccoli. They produce the same year they are started but do not winter over. She thinks if she had a hoop house they might survive. They were forming their flower heads when I was there yesterday.

Fabulous, exemplary garden. Grass path around perimeter inside the electric fence, and a wider grass path side to side and through the middle separating the two sets of rows. Rows are 50 feet long and 5 feet wide. Organic. Where she uses plastic sheet as mulch (for Walla Walla onions, for example) it is biodegradable. Most mulching is newspaper or corrugated cardboard with crappy hay or wood chips over it.

She raises everything from asparagus, the aforementioned broccoli, potatoes, corn (sequentially planted), tomatoes, tomatillos, ground cherries, celery, celtuce etc to the artichokes and peanuts and more. There are a few rows of flowers for the bees - her husband has two hives in the vegetable garden area. One double row area is planted to buckwheat both as a green manure and for the bees.

And yes, those are their solar electric panels at the back of the field.

They also have a small orchard with peaches, apples, plums, pears, blueberries, and grape vines.

She has a dehydrator, freezes, and pickles but doesn't do much canning.

I'm invited to come back in a month. You bet I will!

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46249
Location: yes

Posted: Sun Jul 21, 19 3:36 pm Post subject:
nice , is that an electric fence around the plot? i suspect some of the wildlife might enjoy a nice garden as do many domesticated critters. i did electric to keep piglets out of pumpkins, it looked messy but it worked

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 16005

Posted: Mon Jul 22, 19 6:55 am Post subject:

That looks good Jam Lady. We can't grow a lot of those things as the climate here is generally less extreme than yours with cooler summers and milder winters on the whole. I don't know that we could get much of a crop of globe artichokes in one year. I used to grow them when we lived nearer the coast, but not much luck where we are now. Some people do grow some odd things down by the coast, but never heard of peanuts being grown here. Did know a Belgian man who was in the Congo about the time the Belgians were leaving, and he told me he had peanuts in his garden there. Looked up celtuce as had never heard of it, and it seems we can grow it here; at least the seeds are sold, so assume they stand a chance of growing.

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 16005

Posted: Fri Jul 03, 20 7:24 am Post subject:
Had a reasonable picking of wild raspberries from the woods today; enough for a reasonable portion each for two people. They are not pure wild, as I think the birds have brought in seeds from cultivated ones, but the flavour is good regardless of size.

Shan

Joined: 13 Jan 2009
Posts: 9075
Location: South Wales

Posted: Fri Jul 03, 20 8:09 am Post subject:
I'm waiting for my lone red raspberry bush to ripen. It's always fairly uncertain as to whether the birds will eat them or if we will get to them first.

gz

Joined: 23 Jan 2009
Posts: 8963
Location: Ayrshire, Scotland

Posted: Fri Jul 03, 20 10:17 am Post subject:
Our strawberries seem to be ripening inside Most of the outside, where the slugs have left them, is white or a very pale tinge of pink..the inside is red...

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